A commonly used type of luminaire for illuminating large work areas is a reflective, fluorescent luminaire. These luminaires are typically either recessed into the ceiling or are mounted on the ceiling within a housing that contains the reflector(s) and lamps. Common applications include lighting for offices, workspaces or large retail areas.
Existing fluorescent luminaires typically include a number of fluorescent lamps disposed within a housing and have reflectors placed above the lamps. Often louvers are placed below the luminaire to prevent scattering of the light and to focus the light onto the horizontal surface below. As the fluorescent tubes are usually long and narrow, these luminaires also tend to be long and narrow. The industry standard fluorescent luminaire has eighteen cells formed by the louvers and uses three thirty-two Watt lamps. Most of the assemblies and reflectors are symmetrical. A drawback associated with such symmetrical luminaires is that the reflector is not particularly efficient because of internal reflections, the resulting light distribution pattern has low vertical foot-candles and the light pattern emitted is not optimized for any particular application.
In many lighting applications, the design goal is to provide a widespread light distribution pattern throughout the entire 180 degree area beneath the luminaire along with the greatest efficiency possible. The widespread light pattern increases the footprint over which light is projected and also results in increased vertical foot candles. As opposed to measuring just the light intensity on the horizontal area beneath the luminaire, vertical foot candles measures the amount of light intensity on a vertical surface below the luminaire. Increased vertical foot candles can be desirable for applications that require light to be spread over a vertical surface such as a display rack, rather than being focused down onto the top of a horizontal surface such as a desk. Also, the greater the efficiency of the luminaire the more light there is that is available for the widespread footprint, thereby resulting in increased light intensity throughout the footprint. Greater efficiency also permits the use of smaller wattage, energy saving lamps in the luminaire. To achieve these goals, some other luminaires have used asymmetrical reflectors and asymmetrical lamp placements, however, most of these are for applications in which the luminaires are used to direct light only onto a specific area. These approaches have been used in a variety of luminaires, including those by Krogsrud in U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,526, by Grierson in U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,870 and by Shemitz in U.S. Pub. No. US2002/0003699. In each of these examples the luminaire provides increased wide angle lighting and vertical foot candles in a particular region below the luminaire, however, such increases are made at the expense of the lighting directly below the luminaire.
Another approach is to use an adjustable reflector to permit lighting the desired area regardless of the specific application. This however, results in a less stable luminaire that requires adjustment and costs more to manufacture because of the added complexity of having moving parts. Further, the efficiency of such luminaires is greatly reduced either because they use materials that are flexible that are not the best possible reflectors or they use more solid reflector elements that are moved around but have spacing between the elements. An example of the flexible approach is shown by Waldmann in U.S. Pat. No. 6,244,729. An example of the movable elements approach can be seen by Littman in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,564,815 and 5,803,585.
Thus, there is a substantial need for a luminaire that can provide wide angle lighting and significant vertical foot candles without requiring adjustment during installation or based upon subsequent applications.